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Article: Housing
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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HOUSING
Native American and Colonial Housing
HOUSING
Native Americans built a wide variety of houses on the North American continent thousands of years before European colonization. Some were simple triangular tipis, engineered to resist the wind and keep out the cold but easily moveable; others were earthen, wood and covering, stone, or adobe houses. Often the shapes of these dwellings reflected the features of the land around them as their builders sought a safe accommodation with nature. Native Americans lived in single-family structures, extended-family structures, and multiunit structures. In the mid-sixteenth century Spaniards explored the Southwest, where they found Native ...